Ever since the Modi government came to power last year, it has been accused of neglecting too many institutions by letting them stay headless. Even now, India doesn’t have a Central Information Commissioner or a Chief Vigilance Commissioner, both crucial offices for public accountability, because the government has been too busy to fill these positions.
The same absence of people at the top is disrupting the education sector as well.
Since October last year, the National Council for Education, Research and Training has been searching for a director after Pervin Sinclair quit with two years of term still left. Similarly, the Central Board of Secondary Education, India’s largest school education board, has been looking for a head since last November after the previous chief’s term expired. In neither case has an appointment been made so far.
Letting these key positions lie vacant, say academicians, is pernicious enough – but to do so when a New Education Policy is being worked upon is a lot worse.
Education overhaul
The government had announced last year that it wants to draw up a fresh policy to revamp everything to do with education and learning in India by December 2015. For this it will take suggestions from the public offline (in direct consultations across the country’s districts) and online (on mygov portal). These suggestions will be followed up with high-level workshops and committee meetings to flesh out and finalise policy. The direct consultations kick-started last month and 12,000 suggestions have already poured in on the mygov portal.
However, there is nobody full-time at the top of NCERT and CBSE to give government inputs.
Activists and academicians feel this is a recipe for disaster. “This [delay in appointments] has been a feature of the current government,” said Shanta Sinha, former chief of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. “It could harm not just the New Education Policy but the education system in general if the positions are left vacant for long.”
Sinha is not off the mark here. NCERT has more than a few issues to deal with internally and, at the same time, is expected to contribute substantially to the formation of the curriculum and guidelines in the school education module of the New Education Policy. It has been given three months to finish the consultations with the various stakeholders of the New Education Policy and submit a report to the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Opaque policies
Not unexpectedly, things are unlikely to go as planned. “When there’s nobody at the helm of an autonomous body, who is going to take the lead in conducting meetings and pushing people to form these policies?” asked Sinha. “If there’s no head at the top to guide the process and give informed inputs, it is a huge handicap in delivering anything of value.”
Sinha feels NCERT has a big role to play in the national curriculum framework, but in the absence of a head it may lose direction. “CBSE and NCERT are convening authorities for everything related to school education in the country,” she said. “If they had personnel at the top, they would have put their minds together and brainstormed on policy instead of going head hunting.”
NCERT, for its part, does not agree. It claims that it has an officiating director, BK Tripathi, in the top office who can handle the responsibilities. “The post has been vacant for seven months now,” said Hemant Kumar, in-charge of public relations at the organisation. “We have Mr Tripathi leading the day-to-day functioning and he is a well-experienced academic.”
So a lack of full-time head will not hurt NCERT or the education policy? “Not directly, I think,” said Kumar. “It’s always better to have two people instead of just one, but there are more people in NCERT than just a director.”
Academicians nevertheless insist that opacity in policy formulation will be damaging. Kiran Bhatty, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy and Research who has worked as an education expert on several projects, including with the government of India, is one of them.
“There’s nobody at the NCERT to oversee the education policy formation and even the head of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, which prepares much of the policies for education, is going to retire in the next two months,” Bhatty said. “There’s no clarity on how the policy is being actually made apart from random people commenting online on mygov.in, even though the government claims that a watermark process of consultation is being held.”
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The same absence of people at the top is disrupting the education sector as well.
Since October last year, the National Council for Education, Research and Training has been searching for a director after Pervin Sinclair quit with two years of term still left. Similarly, the Central Board of Secondary Education, India’s largest school education board, has been looking for a head since last November after the previous chief’s term expired. In neither case has an appointment been made so far.
Letting these key positions lie vacant, say academicians, is pernicious enough – but to do so when a New Education Policy is being worked upon is a lot worse.
Education overhaul
The government had announced last year that it wants to draw up a fresh policy to revamp everything to do with education and learning in India by December 2015. For this it will take suggestions from the public offline (in direct consultations across the country’s districts) and online (on mygov portal). These suggestions will be followed up with high-level workshops and committee meetings to flesh out and finalise policy. The direct consultations kick-started last month and 12,000 suggestions have already poured in on the mygov portal.
However, there is nobody full-time at the top of NCERT and CBSE to give government inputs.
Activists and academicians feel this is a recipe for disaster. “This [delay in appointments] has been a feature of the current government,” said Shanta Sinha, former chief of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. “It could harm not just the New Education Policy but the education system in general if the positions are left vacant for long.”
Sinha is not off the mark here. NCERT has more than a few issues to deal with internally and, at the same time, is expected to contribute substantially to the formation of the curriculum and guidelines in the school education module of the New Education Policy. It has been given three months to finish the consultations with the various stakeholders of the New Education Policy and submit a report to the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
Opaque policies
Not unexpectedly, things are unlikely to go as planned. “When there’s nobody at the helm of an autonomous body, who is going to take the lead in conducting meetings and pushing people to form these policies?” asked Sinha. “If there’s no head at the top to guide the process and give informed inputs, it is a huge handicap in delivering anything of value.”
Sinha feels NCERT has a big role to play in the national curriculum framework, but in the absence of a head it may lose direction. “CBSE and NCERT are convening authorities for everything related to school education in the country,” she said. “If they had personnel at the top, they would have put their minds together and brainstormed on policy instead of going head hunting.”
NCERT, for its part, does not agree. It claims that it has an officiating director, BK Tripathi, in the top office who can handle the responsibilities. “The post has been vacant for seven months now,” said Hemant Kumar, in-charge of public relations at the organisation. “We have Mr Tripathi leading the day-to-day functioning and he is a well-experienced academic.”
So a lack of full-time head will not hurt NCERT or the education policy? “Not directly, I think,” said Kumar. “It’s always better to have two people instead of just one, but there are more people in NCERT than just a director.”
Academicians nevertheless insist that opacity in policy formulation will be damaging. Kiran Bhatty, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy and Research who has worked as an education expert on several projects, including with the government of India, is one of them.
“There’s nobody at the NCERT to oversee the education policy formation and even the head of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, which prepares much of the policies for education, is going to retire in the next two months,” Bhatty said. “There’s no clarity on how the policy is being actually made apart from random people commenting online on mygov.in, even though the government claims that a watermark process of consultation is being held.”